Authorities attack parental loophole in drinking-age law

DALLAS (AP) - Some authorities are criticizing an exception to Texas alcohol laws that allows minors to drink if a parent is present.

In Dallas, where police last week broke up a beer bash in a warehouse involving about 200 high school students, the police chief thinks the exception is wrong.

"I think it sends a mixed message," Chief Ben Click told The Dallas Morning News. "I don't think government should interject itself into family relations, but I would really question a parent who would do that."

There have been many recent cases in Texas in which parents helped their teen-age children host parties with alcohol or failed to stop parties when they knew teens were drinking.

Last year, a Lubbock couple hosted a party where about 50 teens were allowed to drink. Two died when a youth left the party drunk and was involved in a wreck.

Billy and Tina Henkel were indicted on two counts each of intoxication manslaughter. Last week, a jury recommended probation for Henkel. His wife hasn't gone to trial.

"Too often the parents are enablers," said Dean Wilkerson, the national executive director of Irving-based Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which takes a zero-tolerance approach to teen drinking.

Click said he thinks parents might be affected by nostalgic feelings about their own youthful experiences with alcohol.

"Back then, you didn't have the violence and the drugs and all the gangs," Click said. "These drinking parties are where a lot of kids have their first introduction to drugs. It's a more serious issue now."

According to the Beer Institute, an industry advocacy group in Washington, only 15 percent of alcohol consumed by underage drinkers is bought by people under 21.

Some defend the parental-presence exemption as a way to allow children to sip wine or other alcoholic beverages at religious ceremonies or family dinners, which is common in some cultures.

There is disagreement over whether such drinking, even if supervised, leads to more alcohol use later on in life. A MADD official said the younger kids start drinking, the more likely they'll become an alcoholic.

But Jeff Becker, the Beer Institute's vice president for alcohol issues, said his parents let him drink an occasional beer when he was 15 or 16, "so there wasn't any great desire to go out and drink all the time."